`Week From Hell' Invades Allentown

June 28, 1990|by TIM DARRAGH, The Morning Call

Diane Miller, a secretary in Allentown Mayor Joseph Daddona's Information and Services office, was trying to explain what it was like to manage things during the Pennsylvania League of Cities convention that opened in Allentown yesterday.

"Besides the non-stop phone ringing ... "

RING!

"We have to get someone with a Class Two driver's license to drive the trolley," she told the person at the other end of the phone. "We really didn't want to tie up the police. We wanted to try someone from streets first."

Ending her conversation, Miller returned her attention to a visitor. "As I was saying, the endless phone calls ... "

RING!

This one was about getting boxes of Hess's sugar from one side of Hamilton Mall to the other. Someone would have to be found to get the gifts to the Hilton Hotel across the street, where about 400 delegates began filtering in yesterday.

Again, she returns to her visitor. " ... and trying to keep your head about you and remaining calm, cool and collected." The words "calm, cool and collected" came out in an obviously overly perky voice, the sign of a woman who's fighting the urge to hurl the telephone out of her fifth-floor window.

Welcome to the opening day of the PLC convention, which will be spread out over three cities, five days, a number of hotels, an amusement park and a theater.

Welcome, Miller says, to "The Week From Hell."

While the mayors of the Lehigh Valley's three cities put on their best business smiles in their big chance to showcase the area, a team of planners, staff workers and secretaries is operating behind the chief executives to make sure the right touches are in place.

"This started months ago," Miller said. But things really accelerated last week as corporate gifts for each and every delegate flowed into the office.

By yesterday, 400 bags, each with a dozen items like pens, keychains, mugs and other small gifts were tucked into 400 small shopping bags. To the delegates, the bag is a friendly little touch. But somebody had to make sure all those pens were delivered, and somebody had to stuff them in 400 bags.

"It's unreal. Unreal," the perpetually cheery Miller said, adding, "Plus, the daily stuff doesn't stop ... The funny thing is that in the middle of all this, people are calling because their trash hasn't been picked up. Or their neighbor's dog is barking."

Attention to all the details is important to local officials, particularly those in Allentown this week who are under the scrutiny of their peers. To government employees in Allentown, hosting the league's annual meeting is like an actor getting nominated for an Oscar.

For the people in the business of city government, the PLC meeting is show time.

The convention, Allentown's Research/Intergovernmental Relations Officer Sharon Stabinski said, is the chance to say, "This is your city. It's not like this is the Elks. These are your peers."

According to Stabinski, a former PLC employee, officials of host cities do not like to be viewed unfavorably by their colleagues at convention time. "You would not believe the one-upmanship," she said.

Allentown might not be able to impress delegates the way Philadelphia could with a banquet at the Franklin Institute, she said. And Pittsburgh can make an impression with corporate box seats to a Pirates game.

But the Lehigh Valley doesn't have those attractions, she said, so it does what it can do. That means, at a minimum, cleaning the streets and keeping the police visible.

Allentown's Downtown Improvement District -- the only one of its kind in Pennsylvania --knows it's on stage, too. "Our maintenance people are absolutely aware of what's happening" at the convention, Executive Director Tony Iannelli said.

For city intern Kerry Peltz, covering all the bases at the Hilton means greeting delegates at the host table with information and 41 different pamphlets about things to do in the Lehigh Valley. Later, Peltz will have 400 "Absolutely Allentown" stickers to affix on those Hess's sugar boxes.

Sometimes, Peltz had to think quickly to help delegates. One visitor asked her to identify Allentown's hot nightspot -- not knowing that the Kutztown University sophomore is not old enough to frequent many of the city's night spots.

Peltz and the rest of Daddona's staff do have one night booked up. They're planning to attend tonight's dinner at the Radisson Hotel as guests of the mayor.

"We're supposed to be eating then," she said, "but we'll probably end up doing something like registration."

Her boss, Susan Rutt, said she enjoys this part of her job, and says she would be happy planning conventions as a career.

But the job is significantly easier when the league stays in one place, as it did here in 1984. This year, 27 buses will be available so delegates can get from one city to another, Rutt said.

Annette Gill, communications coordinator for the league, said Day One of the convention was coming off well, thanks to the host cities.

"All three of the mayors," she said, "have been very helpful and very organized."

For those people who make the mayors helpful and organized, it's four more days of ringing telephones, dressing up sugar boxes and fielding questions ad infinitum.

Except for Miller.

She's off for the weekend, and is taking a vacation day tomorrow.

"I'm going to put the (answering) machine on," she said, "sit back and relax."